Meet O. Max Gardner, foreclosure defense pioneer

From Years before foreclosure documentation became a national issue — drawing the attention of 50 state attorneys general and the U.S. Department of Justice — a bankruptcy litigator and grandson of a former North Carolina governor was trying to do something about the problem.

Since 2006, attorney O. Max Gardner has been running a boot camp of sorts to teach fellow lawyers how to exploit the mistakes of mortgage companies. Attendees are admitted only after a background check to make sure they don’t work for creditors, BloombergBusinessweek reports.

Gardner’s critics say he is keeping insolvent borrowers in their homes for longer than they ought to be living there and view him as an agitator who gums up the bankruptcy process, Reuters says.

On PBS’s NewsHour earlier this month, Gardner made a strong accusation against companies involved in the securitization of mortgages. While the industry has begun to speak out about the issue, saying that in most cases the paperwork appears to have been transferred properly, Gardner said that of the thousands of cases he’s reviewed: “All I can say is, I have never seen a complete unbroken chain.”